The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-08-23
RIDICULOUS PROPOSITION.
i. THE HERALD,
Salt Lake City, Utah.

Several railroads have agreed on q
rate of one cent a. mile for carrying
passengers to and from st. Louis at the
Grand Army meeting. We don't know
how far west this rate comes, but pre-
sumo not far, though it Is said that
most of the roads in Illinois, Iowa.
Wisconsin Indiana and Ohio have
agreed to 1t. The fact having been an
nounced, some of the rural papers In
these and other States are demanding
that the one cent rate be made perma
nent and general. When your average
editor undertakes to say anything
about railway, especially with refer
ence to its charges, he can display more
ignorance or more viciousness to the
line, than on any other occasion. he
seems to think that he is at perfect
liberty to declare all prices too high
and that people will agree with him as
a matter Of course because he denounoes
railroad charges. A Colorado exchange.
speaking of the cent rate, says the price
is high enough, and that if all railroads
throughout the country were to adopt
it they would get more money from
their passenger traffic than they
do now, the theory being that
the roads would carry so many more
people that they would make up for the
reduced rate. Such statments are SIM
ply ridiculous. 1t is undoubtedly true
that low rate stimulates travel, but
there-is limit to it. You cannot in
duce people to travel where there are no
people to travel. In thickly settled
communities low rate will be more re-
munerative to the railways, for the lat
ter will more than make up
from increased numbers what they
lose from reduced rates. -Four
persons would travel at one cent mile,
when only one would go if the rate
were three cents; but if there are only
two to travel how is the railway to get
even by reducing to cent rider
We ought to be as reasonable with
railways as with other public institu-
tons, and not denounce them merely
because they are railways. A one-cent
mile rate west of the Missouri, would
soon bankrupt railway, not because
the people would not patronize it, but
because there are not enough
people, if they were all to travel
three or four times IS much as
they do, to make 1t profitable for
the railroad to carry them. 1t is
about one thousand miles from Ogden
to Omaha, and one cent rate would
make the fare between the two points
$1,000. Does anybody think the Union
Pacific could hold up at such a rate3
Between Ogden and Salt Lake there is
more railway travel than there is over
an equal distance in any other part of
the Territory; and yet that travel would
have to be four or FIVE times what it is
before the railroads could afford to
carry passenger for 81 cents.
AS population increases fares should
be reduced; the reduction as a rule,
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good Of the railways and the benefit of
the public; but do not let us make
asses of ourselves in our proneness and
eagerness to ssssu railroad COM
pauies. Far too much that is said
against the railroads is quite as I'M
reasonable and ridiculous as this propo-
sition that one cent mile rate should
be established for the whole country.
When there are a million people in
Utah the railroads will doubtless make
money by carrying q passenger mile
for a cent, but with 2OO, 900 people here,
and only a part of these within the
railway district. the fewer persons car
ried at / cent mile, the more money
will the companies make.